Another thing that complicates this in the life sciences is that techniques aren't standard. If I use 8 month old rats and draw blood in the morning, I will likely have different gene expression and protein content than your study that uses 4 month old rats of the same strain and draw blood at night.
Each article includes these details, and it is very hard to know if the result is more generally true, or only true for the conditions of my study.
It is for this reason that reviews are important and difficult to replace with some constantly-updating model of information release.
Hrm. But if each article includes these details but there is no way to generalize the findings, how is a review going to help? Scientist A doing the study claims X effect when using 8 month old rats and drawing blood in the morning. Scientist B comes along and says, "looks like sound science to me, conclusion is valid!"
But Scientist B has no idea if some gene expression and protein content are the result of the blood draw time, the age of the rats, or the temperature of the lab. How can ANY review be effective if there are no other studies on 8-month old rat blood drawn in the morning in a colder room?
The problem with comparative studies here is also a problem with peer reviews, and more generally, a problem with life sciences and the idea of controls v. variables.
Each article includes these details, and it is very hard to know if the result is more generally true, or only true for the conditions of my study.
It is for this reason that reviews are important and difficult to replace with some constantly-updating model of information release.